The field of the invention relates generally to gear drives, and more specifically to non-corrosive gear drive housings configured to prevent entrapment of foreign materials.
Many industries, i.e. the food preparation industry, require a sanitary and hygienic work environment, oftentimes mandated by compliance regulations. Food processing equipment within this industry must meet or exceed these standards. Known food processing equipment use gear drive assemblies to facilitate powering food preparation machines. Some known gear drives are fabricated from ferrous and/or metallic materials and are typically coated to prevent corrosion. However, such gear drives may be difficult to adequately clean and maintain compliance with the aforementioned regulations, and such coatings may chip or crack thus exposing the gear drive to potentially corrosive substances as well as potentially contaminating nearby food products.
Some other known gear drives include complex external surfaces that may promote the accumulation of foreign or deleterious materials. Due to the relatively sharp corners defined between adjacent surfaces of such gear casings, processed food may become lodged in crevices formed between adjacent surfaces. Although a periodic cleaning operation may be performed on such gear casings to remove any food particles, such cleaning operations may be time consuming and labor intensive and may fail to adequately clean such surfaces.